School Board Public Hearing and Work Session 02/24/2025

001it's uh 6:30 and I would like to um call to order the sheno County Schoolboard public hearing on the budget and I would like to um ask for a motion to approve the agenda as as it has been presented move to approve the agenda as presented thank you Mr Guta second second second by Mr Rickard all in favor please signify by saying I I I any opposed thank you so I'm going to read um a notice of this of this public hearing uh it's being held to receive feedback from the community on the proposed fiscal year 26 uh that is the school year 2526 budget sheno County School Board welcomes public comment from sheno County residents parents or Guardians as well as from current students and employees of shindo County Public Schools school board members

002do not respond to public comments during the meeting or this hearing each speaker may speak up to three minutes uh we have uh 50 minutes 15 minutes reserved we can go over that if we need to but um it looks like we'll we may be able to fit that in we'll see um all comments should address the matter at hand which is the fiscal year budget um and any complaints regarding division employee should be directed to the school principal or an appropriate School Division official School Board expects that each speaker will be courteous modeling for our students how one can respectfully disagree with others views speakers will address their comments to the entire school board and not to one individual uh individual Schoolboard member to the superintendent to a staff member nor to the audience

003speaker will not engage in personal attacks uh speakers uh have been afforded the opportunity to um sign up on a document that has been provided by the clerk of the school board and I see that list as being brought to me even as we speak at the moment we have um three speakers signed up to speak um if any of the speakers um would like to Present written comments at school board uh then they can present eight copies uh to the Schoolboard Clerk and they'll be uh distributed appropriately with that in mind I'm going to ask the first uh speaker to come forward uh that would be an wening well I've come to see that this isn't the most popular meeting here um I would like to thank everybody again um board superintendent for hearing

004me out um I've I've looked through you know some of the proposals and I'm still here to Advocate um for an elementary school and I see that it's option C and I don't know if ABC means anything in this proposal when I looked at it but I'm I was hoping this one would be a letter a because I think it should be the priority and I think you know I talk to kids I do lessons in front of them every day and I said you know when you're weighing a big decision you should look at the pros and the cons and when I look at this decision I see definitely more Pros than cons by building an elementary school over the vacational school it can solve you know it can give opportunities to close down

005part of our existing elementary schools so they can be properly renovated we can alleviate um some of the traffic issues that we're experiencing in two locations depending upon where we find the space I again would advocate for middle or martown at the County Farm I don't know if that's an option but I feel like that's a great place it's close to to our park we can get more bang for our buck if we're looking at $60 million for triplet and you're looking at 40 mlion million for an elementary school you got 20 million to maybe work with for an Aquatics facility you know there's just I think there's just more Pros than cons and I'm just would like everybody consider that I don't know how this decision is made um ultimately because this is all

006pretty new to me to come and speak I mean up until this year um before you so I'm not sure even how you know this ABC thing is going to be decided um if that could be clarified or explained tonight I I would appreciate that thank you for your time thank you next speaker is Cara uh is it roek maros moch thank you H good afternoon board and superintendent my name is Cara mosic I am a mother to two children at Sandy Hook my daughter will be starting there in 2027 my son's in kindergarten my other son is in second grade I have um had the opportunity to volunteer in the school uh since my youngest was in kindergarten and it's just been really a pleasure to see the teachers doing their best and they're

007wonderful and the joy that they bring and the enthusiasm they bring to my kids it's it really is very meaningful and I appreciate that a lot and the support that you all give to them um but I'm here to talk also about the capacity issues at Candy Hook and I just jotted some notes down on my way in but um I've learned and I've read through some of the board documents that the capacity is at just shy of capacity and I I don't know if that's based off fire code numbers or or whatever but um I want to express my concern that if if we exceed those projections that again I'm not certain where those projections who made the projections and what they were based on if we see those projections what is the backup

008plan because our students you know they can't be weight listed they're kindergarteners these are elementary students this is a core function of the what what we're here to do is to provide public AG education to our students just as an aside I'll give some anecdotal uh thoughts my my kindergartener eats lunch at 10:30 in the morning every day because the cafeteria is so small and he's starving but I mean they have snacks and and things but he's starving by the time he gets home from school my um both of them have specials certain specials like music and art maybe every other week maybe 15 times total in the entire school year I would like them to be able to do that more but because the school is at capacity it's very difficult to to do

009that so I think that we can do better and I asked that funding be designated for expanding Sandy Hook considering expanding Sandy Hook or building another school because it really doesn't seem like being at this maximum capacity is is a uh real alternative as opposed to funding triplet Tech thank you thank you uh Shane Waller good evening my name is Shane Waller um that's my wife Cara uh obviously I share the three three kids with her I would also Echo her sentiments the the the our experience with Sandy Hook has been um amazing we're just like maybe 10 or 15 minutes outside of town everyone there is fantastic um but I do see as I do most the pickups and drop offs at the school and I do see that the school is is at

010the very Max of its capacity during those pickups and drop offs um most recently they they moved to um doing three pickup lines so there's one in between the middle of a parking lot and two uh that are double stacked along the side of the building building um so what this means is that the kids are walking through parked cars some of them running as we're waiting to pick up kids uh as they have to load into other cars um and every day when I pick up the kids I just cringe about you know what would happen if someone didn't see a kid that darted in between those cars and the the only reason it's this way is because there's just so many kids at the school I certainly appreciate that trip of tech is

011is an important asset it's a very good program um but when you think about what happens if the capacity goes over the projections where do those kid kids go where do the elementary school kids go what's what's the plan I I don't know what that would be would we try to put more kids into Sandy Hook I mean that just seems very difficult to do the flip side too from looking at it just a numbers perspective it is cheaper to build Sandy H or sorry to build another Elementary School than it is to expand triple Tech you can put more students into another Elementary School than you could in tripet Tech so the cost the marginal cost would be lower to have a impact over more students right right you could affect more elementary kids

012by spending less money than you could by putting that money into triple Tech and again triplet Tech is a worthy cause and it's unfortunate that we're kind of have to pick one over the other but I would really would urge you to consider building another elementary school thank you thank you are there any other speakers um we have until quarter till of which which time we will begin our next our work session meeting um so I'll um think we should just kind of hang loose in in case somebody else comes in the next 5 minutes uh because that was a period we uh allocated uh and if they come we'll let them speak and if not at 7:45 we'll um begin our work session part of the meeting I don't think the orri Phillies came

013yesterday is can reflect probably not for nice still have opport ch this is how much [Applause] El he's got to go left so it's educational capacity well we have reached the U the time of um the end of the uh the public hearing on the budget uh uh unless there's any um opposition I'm going to um adjourn that part of the meeting so the hearing now is uh concluded and we will move into our uh County school work session um Cheryl I think we need to um note that uh Mr street is tempor temporarily gone uh and uh we'll we'll make an announcement when he when he returns um do I have a motion to approve the agenda uh for the work session at as it has been presented I'll move to approve the agenda

014as presented thank you Mr Rickard a second second second Mrs Carino thank you all in favor of approving the agenda please signify by saying I I any oppos none so five 5 Z we've approved the agenda uh and we're going to move into um four items that we have on our schedule for the work session and we'll begin with information on health insurance Dr Shepard thank you I am very excited to um to hear some great information on health insurance I'm going to turn it over to Linda to introduce our health insurance um Consultants good evening board members this evening we have our health insurance Consultants here from the Griff insurance services and they're going to share with you some information about our upcoming renewal Mr Scott chansy and Renee Yates thank you Linda can

015you hear me okay MH perfect um pleasure to be here so thank you for the opportunity to talk to you this evening about the health insurance renewal that is going to be effective July 1st you may recall that last last year we moved the medical dental and vision coverages from Etna to Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield so we are facing what we refer to as in our world as a firste renewal firste renewals have some inherent challenges with them primarily on the medical side there's not a lot of claims data at Anthem doesn't have a full year of claims information to underwrite the renewal recognizing that last year we negotiated a firste rate cap with anthem on the medical plan that rate cap was 99.9% increase on the medical and that is what we received

016on the medical this year was a 99.9% increase remember we bundle the medical with dental Invision here at the schools and so there is zero increase on the dental and no increase on the vision so when we blend the medical 9 .9 with the dental Envision at no increase given the relative premium dollars it works out to about a 9.4% increase in the current rates for the renewal with Anthem effective July 1st that equates to about $1.1 million in total premium and remember that premium is split between the employees paying a portion and the schools paying a portion thoughts comments questions so just as a reminder we had budgeted for a 12% increase so that is two and a half% less than what we had budgeted for so it's good news good news and it's

017probably the lowest increase in a while right yes it's been gotten up pretty yes it would be yes yeah and I have more information in the budget presentation about the cost of health insurance for our employees plus employee plus family um I think you'll be pleased with any other questions for Mr chany thank you so much thank you appreciate thank you always nice to get good news thank you sir so the we're moving right to our second minutes I got our second issue correct yes okay so um what you're passing around now is um the highlights for the for the the discussion for budget and CIP yes and Mr Gilmore will be putting that up on the slide in just a second on the screens so start every budget o sorry about that start every

018budget conversation with the timeline and you will notice that the general assembly concluded um on February the 22nd we have some information in the later slide on what that could mean for shanoa County Public Schools um tonight is the Schoolboard public hearing and we would like to thank our three speakers who came out to speak for um the budget and then also the budget work session tomorrow the County Administrator and um the Board of Supervisors the County administrator will present his proposed budget in tip to the um Board of Supervisors so I want to iterate that tonight is the time for Schoolboard members to actually say I like this I don't like this in the budget so that when we come back on March the 13th which is when um the this will be um

019approved um we have you know we have some good information or we can get um information for you to make an informed decision so tonight's the night if you have anything that you want to include or anything that you want to exclude if um if you see anything as we go through the budget and we'll go slow so let's make this a kind of a back and forth between all of us so that we can make sure that that the budget reflects um what you guys want as well so March the 13th is when the school board will approve um the budget and then March the 17th we have a board of supervisor Schoolboard work session um to talk about the budget and then the Board of Supervisors will come to back to us on

020April the 15th and say this is what shinida County Public Schools gets out of the budget and then on April the 20th the board will get back the school board will get back together and do a final budget adoption so if you know just say we ask for a million dollar and they give us $800,000 we're going to have to make a $200,000 um adjustment there so want to make sure that um you guys are aware that there will be a last adoption and that will be April the 28th so always try to talk about our budget priorities um where it meets our strategic plan goals and its academic achievement and growth recruit support and retain enthusiastic professionals high quality and adequate learning facilities are the three um strategic goals that we um focus on

021in this year's budget so at the last meeting um I think it was February the 13th these there are no changes in any of these um requests there are new instructional positions um um funded which are four English learner teachers U one Middle School teacher to support increased enrollment two pair of professionals one for students with disabilities and one for to support um in stalburg high school library for bus drivers to help reduce the number of double runs that we have on our campuses and then three student support Specialists the total of those positions is uh a little under a million dollars grain absorption about 355,000 um one um assistant principal ashle Ashby Lee that is now currently being funded out of Allin Virginia funds and those funds go away um at the end of

022next year but we want to go ahead and include that position in our operate operating fund this year um a 05 um full-time equivalent Health Sciences teacher this is the OT occupational therapy PT physical therapy teacher at triplet Tech and this it was funded this past year through the Claude Moore Foundation and then also software packages that were either funded through cares or funded through the all-in Virginia will need to go into the operating budget this year as well the very last um item on this list is the new Aviation program and as I mentioned last time we have a public private partnership that is going to pay for this program for the um the operation um so for both equipment and teacher for the first year so we will have to pick up that

023teacher in the second year but um we're so excited about that public private partnership for the aviation teacher could you explain a little bit about the scope with that I mean we've talked before about light simulation and passenger can you give us an overview of what what that program is yeah I'm going to pass that to either um Dave Hein Gardner or Chad Hensley they probably know a little more than I do but I know um Dr hner has been talking with Todd Lynn about the actual scope of that that program more so than I have yeah and Chad you may have had more conversations than I had I I was just kind of intrigued by it and really excited that this could be something we would offer so I was just kind of inquiring

024for myself and I was asking him about the simulator and I said boy Bo I would love to get there and get my hands on that one day what's that going to look like and he said well it won't be one of the one of the huge ones that you can literally sit in and close the doors you know you're looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars for one of those um but it will probably he's he's hoping they can purchase it's a 360° screen that goes around and then has the controls that that simulate the controls in an in an airplane um and that's that's the um the device that they would be using as a simulator then they would also be going up um and and flying uh at at least once as

025part of the experiential part of what the students would gain um from being in that course um they certainly want to do trips to airports also and visiting different airports and and learning you know the pieces around that as well so um he told me when they when they finish when students finish this program in two years they'll be halfway to being getting their being able to get their pilot's license okay so I so then I'm assuming that this thing is pilot oriented for the time being uh we hear a lot of auxiliary programs have to do with light simulation and ground control and all kind of interesting cool stuff um which could be adjunct to this but but now we're focusing on that pilot training as the kind of our wedge entry into this

026and um sounds pretty cool and uh there's a lot of Buzz about this in the state and about it actually happening here so I can I can get the confidence to you you L what the kids will be learning I'm I'm happy to know that that's the initial Focus so I'm I'm good and Miss Campbell said that um there was a something in the general assembly this morning that gave additional funds to bluid Community College for some type of Flight Aviation mechanics which is a program they have existing the general assembly has proposed to allocate money to expand that program thank you so we're very excited about the program we'll go through this list we'll talk a little bit about what the general assembly has proposed and then we'll come back to it to see

027if there's anything that you guys would like to amend add delete um high quality and adequate facilities and learning the capital funding um 6 A5 million and we will look at it more in depth here in a little bit um inflation and increased uh service cost at $887,000 this due to increases at um Peter mberg student increases ATU uh Peter mberg we are increasing their um their op their funds and then also because the inflation for the cost materials we are asking for additional funds to support triplet Tech and then we have purchased um new bus cameras at um for the transportation department and we will need to fund the software that that runs those cameras next year and then the last area is recruit support and retain enthusiastic professionals targeted scale adjustments $220,000 this

028is to adjust the bus driver salary scale to align um base hour hourly rates with increased contract hours and then to regrade the athletic directors to align with high school assistant principles dual enrollment stien to give a stien to each of our teachers who teach a dual enroll class um their their load is more than a teacher who is not teaching a dual enrollment class because they have to keep two separate grade books and so on and so forth so we would like to compensate them for that and also their um cour work has to be they have to have like a master's plus 18 um 18 hours in their content area so we' like to compensate them for that and then the compensation increase either a step um plus a 2% cost of living

029increase I see that the 2% is missing there or a 3.16 cost of living adjustment and then allocation for health insurance increase at a little over a million dollars so I mentioned earlier that we would um talk about health insurance actually in your packet turn to page cuz it's not on here um turn to page four slide seven and you will notice that the proposal is for employee plus family to go from $83 this fiscal year to $655 next F school year and if you look at the bottom chart there you will notice that that actually puts us in um in line with our neighbors Frederick County and Rockingham County so employee plus family is uh would be 655 here in chanida in Frederick this current year it would be $6 about $30 and then

030in Rockingham it would be 516 so we would go from $1,250 in 2223 to $655 2526 that is those are some great gains um on health insurance over the last four years we've made a lot of difference because that is actual money in people's pockets um at the end of the day so let's see and then you will notice um the next slide is the additional considerations uh recruit support and retain professionals um one thought and this isn't included in that $1.3 million that we mentioned last week or two weeks ago but a $2,500 retention sign on um bonus siphon for special ed teachers which would cost1 180,000 uh $2,500 retention or sign on stien for school counselors which would be about 52,000 and then a $2500 retention longevity stip in for staff with 20

031plus years um with shinida County Public School which would be about 450,000 is that once per year so it would actually as a stien help me out kayln if I'm wrong it would actually be split up between 12 months and they would get a portion of it every month so that it would go towards their retirement so each calendar year yes we get that yes as long as they're teaching special ed as as long as we maintain it in the budget and they are teaching a special ed yes thank you for that clarification so sorry this question so if we attract the teacher and we tell them that that's what we're going to give them I mean are we going to be committed to give it to them every year or so if we put

032it cont if we put it as a stip in yes yeah okay until we until do away with that stien which typically doesn't happen at the bottom of of your um salary scales if you look at your budget book on page 77 you will see the stiens for a teacher there's a 15 plus hour stien of 300 that means um Any teacher who has a bachelor's degree plus 15 hours would get a $375 stip in um Any teacher with their bachelor's plus their master's degree would get $3,171 so on and so forth so it would be listed as a stien at the bottom of their salary scale but it would be um I guess the question is and it'd be every year like that we would have to renew it every single year so it

033would be ongoing until the school board opted to change the stien list okay so they couldn't come back and say hey you didn't give it to us this year they shouldn't I mean that I'm I'm just saying saying we wouldn't have an obligation to to have it so long as they're employed it it would be contingent upon whether as long as they're meeting the requirements of the S right okay yeah I guess my view on it I mean kind of you you look at this and then you look at the other money that's being um absorbed from the grants starts to add up you know long term I'm not going to be here but you know I think that's something to consider is know you add 682 and then you're feels like we've been adding

034to the uh the grant absorption pretty heavily the last few years it's kind of continuing to go so I mean that's 900 to a million 900 something thousand to a million there additionally so um I think that would be a concern long term um I think stiping at least this year is great it's necessary but I think if you kind of try to commit to that next five to 10 years um that's gonna could cause some issues just trying to find that money as it continues to grow um so just my perspective do you do you have any other ideas of how we could retain our special education teachers yeah I don't know it's I mean money isn't everything thing we know that helps but we have to be creative in that um I just

035think long term that that a big challenge for our area how many openings do we have right now for each one of those special ed and also counselors M school counselors we have six six open we started the year with six and we currently have six and how many do we need 20 what 20 20 and special ed we started the year with four and we currently have three maybe what do you mean three special ed teachers vacancies oh vacancies okay yes not total yeah was saying did everybody quit okay so how many just so how many do we have and how many do we need for the special ed special ed how many kayin will get I will get that number and the six is six vacancies out of 20 that we need the

036counselors we have six vacancies out of a total of 20 positions okay that's what we good going for yeah yeah I got go to lburg try toit we have about 66 special education teachers and how many do we need Linda did you say three so far three you mean three vacancies okay so we need 69 it's 66 total positions okay we failed 6 63 of them okay yeah all right I think any other questions we we do want to update you on the what the general assembly did which is the next slide dereck's putting that up here in a minute so if I can just say something here I mean with this um we know that we're h with a special ed and and retaining and all that um I've talked to other people and

037and they seem to think that this is something that would help um I had suggested the idea of the typen for staff um just because I thought it would have been something really nice to do for them but um you know if it's a lot of money so if we needed to cut it back or just leave it off all together um that's fine it was just an idea of trying to reward the people who have been with us for that for that long um so I'm just going to leave it there and see where we are I'd like to I think that's a good point and tag on to what Kyle said a few minutes ago um it's easy for us to say money isn't everything but I think for a special ed teacher

038teaching conditions uh and the pressure and um empathies and all the other things that go into um making for job satisfaction are are important considerations and uh it's not easy to come up with non-monetary um benefits uh in other fields you might be able to get compensatory time or lack of Duties assigned or other things and I think we I'm sure the staff has probably been creative about that but we probably need to continue to to figure other ways that um that the uh environment for these special ed teachers uh is improved or or that there are other ways of professionally compensating other than other other than money easy to say hard to do I understand but but we can always look at some creative approaches to to ways that that that might be done

039over the last number of years special education and school counselors have been our highest vacancies across the board exactly Melody I want to thank you for putting that together that I thought it was a good idea um do does anything come to the front of your mind when we talk about not compensating them financially to retain them or draw people in so some of our neighbors are actually doing a retention bonus or stapen for our for their special I don't know that they're doing it for school counselors um and I'm not sure about the longevity but when we look at where we lose teachers you know it's at 11 plus years and if this would help us keep our teachers for longer because we want our most experienced teachers here um that would be you

040know that would be a huge benefit um because we're currently having teachers who have a few years of experience mentoring our brand new teachers so we would love to have teachers who have many years of experience mentoring our new teachers so you know um it just shows that we appreciate our special ed teachers our school counselors or you know this is you don't have to do all three um you could do one you could do two you could do none but this is just the opportunity to to look at this and um Miss Hodge had the opportunity need to talk to two School divisions that um did this and she asked what the um how the other staff felt and the answer was he did not hear a word no complaints at all yeah I

041mean I believe for special ed we need to do something when you sit down and you listen to the different lesson plans those teachers have to go through compared to their general education counterparts it's mind-blowing and to not try to figure out a way to compensate them to retain them I don't know what we're going to do so I wanted to go back to this slide um to show you what the cost of um health insurance I talked about it a little bit but there there you can actually see it on the screen employee plus family you'll see that it's you know it went from $1,249 199 and we're proposing for for this coming year to be $655 um which I find pretty exciting and then um down below it you'll see oops sorry you'll

042see where it um we compare it with with our two neighbors but those are this year's rates for those those two divisions not sure where they'll go next year hopefully we're not constantly chasing them we've been Chas chasing them for the last four years in employee plus family and I think the the work that we've done over the last four years will will at least make us competitive with them so then um the general assembly we talked earlier about the general assembly concluding on Saturday and here are um some here is some of the information that we can expect from the general assembly now the governor actually has to um sign off on these but Miss Campbell do you want to talk a little bit about these three bullet points here sure based on original

043um conference reports staff estimates from the general assembly what has made it out of the general assembly to the governor's desk we can probably expect about $1.2 million for Shan andoa County specifically the first bullet is to eliminate the recession era support cap what that was is during 2011 2012 the state put a false cap on the number of support positions that would reimburse these are our bus drivers the people at this table um principles that type of thing and they C how many they would pay for so this eliminates that cap from 2011 which would create about a million dollars in additional revenue for us for those positions there is a proposed add-on for special education support it's to provide additional basic Aid funding based on a per student allocation prated based on the

044level of need each individual student has as reported by the December one count um we can expect about $200,000 there so $1.2 million that in our operating fund we could use in a variety of ways we can also hope to see increased breakfast reimbursement this would be a food service specific item um to help continue to fund those programs I have a note at the bottom that there was additional funding proposed for school construction assistance grants I know we've talked a lot about those grants in our work sessions those are the grants that require us to have a project planned or in the planning phases and then apply for funding based on um need of the locality fiscal distress those types of indicators so at the last meeting in February I said our ask would

045be about 1.27 n million and if you know I don't know um we don't know what the details are going to be for that special education support that $200,000 we don't know if it's things that we're already doing or things we would have to add so I'm not you know we I don't think we can count on that money at this point but the million dollars we could count on so if we take that 1.27 n million and subtract that 1 million then we're asking $300,000 from our locality so just wanted to you know share that so if oops wrong wrong device um if there was something here that we wanted to add then we could definitely consider that so we don't know if the 200,000 can be can pay for the we we don't

046know we don't have the details of that the like I said the general assembly just concluded on Saturday and in in the next two two to 3 weeks we'll have some details we just don't have them now but we have to remember that the governor has to sign off on this at the end of the day so so I'm going to I'm going to scroll back and see if there are any any changes you want to make to any of these things that are that are included on this slide all right scroll forward we'll talk about Capital funding here in a minute um any changes here on the $887,000 hearing none we'll move on to this slide right here changes recommendations additions okay so at the May March March 13th meeting we will come back

047with um a proposal we should have more information on the um State allocation at that point so through Capital Improvement plan so we've talked about this um the long-term facilities plan I had the opportunity to go to a board of supervisor meeting when they were talking to their financial advisor a few weeks ago it was very um it was very interesting and they are talking about major Capital so would be interested in in continuing to hear more about that but what I am going to press the board on over the at the March 13th meeting is to actually adopt one of these long-term facilities plans um whether it's option a option b or option C um or a hybrid of any of those options um option A has um transportation maintenance and triplet um at

048the top of the list then a new elementary school and then um that one was based on the FCI rating so the higher the FCI rating the the more need more in need it was of renovation is that right drner cor yes right and then um option b was the um was lumping all of the the elementary schools together all the high schools together together and all of the middle schools together and then option three actually has a new Elementary School in triplet Tech at the top and then the elementary schools right under that so understand that this long-term plan right now it's a 25 year plan but it could definitely be a 30 or a 35 year plan at the end of the day we just needed to start somewhere and um so be

049interested in in hearing your feedback on where you would like to go with our long-term facilities plan I was pretty gung-ho on the triplet Tech idea being that that's my line of work and the CTE program I think that's a big thing um to see the condition of our elementary school in strawsburg and WW Robinson and at the central campus and I was just riding South on 81 the other day hadn't even paid attention before they're building all kinds of new tow houses off the Woodstock exit as well um I've definitely got to go with option C and is there a significance that the new Elementary is above the triplet Tech is that any significance at all yeah we put them on the same year at 2025 and um what I would propose to the

050school board is that if we have any carry um Carry forward funds from last year that we actually use those carry forward funds to do uh the architectural design with those carry forward funds of one or both of the projects so that way and I think our Board of Supervisors would be interested in in in hearing that request so um I'm not saying that they would fund it but they would definitely consider it I'm going to Echo it Mike said um I I'm really torn because I I know the good that triplet does and and this education for our kids um however I do think that our hands are kind of tied and the new element Elementary is probably or should be the priority just because we see both schools are almost at capacity and

051you know the time is going to take to build this new school and get it going um by then I think we are going to be at capacity and um I I'm hoping you know if we could fund them both that would be great um if not my focus would be the new elementary and then see if there are ways that we can start to alleviate some of the um congestion that we have a triplet um I mean I don't know we've talked about this just thinking outside the box if there's things like we can move like for example all the health services that we have um or or education related to health if we could move it to another building you know um here with the hospital or Valley Health or some other place

052that we could actually move some of those um programs out of triplet and then open up more space at triplet um I would like to see if we can uh start looking into that but I I do believe that the elementary is the the priority um but I don't want to just ignore triplet because this could actually help a lot of our students this could be their livelihood once they graduate so I I don't want to completely ignore that I just think the new Elementary would be the priority where are we in Once Upon a Time it wasn't that long ago we were all kind of dreamy eyed about a a nice new shiny U state-of-the-art triplet uh and I think over the past few months those some of us have been looking at an

053alternative to having a a nicely restored triplet uh that would be able to house some um good new programs uh and so I'm wondering if there's any kind of triplet dividend we can see in pursuing that a restoration if you will given that the the footprint of that land would probably accept some some sort of restoration without much you know radical redesign and I know that uh there have been people talking about land acquisition or land modification so forth um are we are we still pursuing that and do we have any idea how much of a of a dividend we could we could expect if we if we took that route with a restoration rather than a than a new building so we actually did a 30,000 foot view with another architect to um see

054what a triplet would cost for a renovation and they did a couple of designs and their new number the new number from this other architect who who has done a lot of work in in shinida County was um it was a little less than 40 million so it was 37 A5 million but you know um so rate around 40 million for a renovation of of triplet Tech and I know you know yes we need a new elementary school we have two really big elementary schools we have one um that has 900 students and we have one uh that has a students and traffic there is um a nightmare in the mornings and in the afternoon so alleviating both of those schools but the thing I don't think we have said out loud is triplet has

055its own um issues for example you can't plug two things into um one wall in the culinary building and you know there's other there's other issues there as well um if we would move the um Healthcare um to to another location we still don't have that high Bay space to add some of those programs that would need that high space like welding or um diesel mechanics or you know things like that so so there are issues there as well you know so it really is both are very necessary I'm sorry mean so the um so the the 3740 million estimate does not include High Bays it does it does yes it would but you know we we failed to mention that you know triplet does have some some challenges sure of their own yeah but

056uh so the Delta there is about 20 million that's correct so the so there is a a dividend um that that could be applied okay thanks yes I want to make sure Kyle Larry didn't have anything um so one of our speakers tonight had mentioned and I wanted to follow up on that what is our emergency plan with the building that's going on in strawsburg and Woodstock if we exceed capacity is there an option to move fifth grade to the middle school and eighth grade to the high school type deal or do we have a plan so the capacity that is and I'm going to let Dave explain it Dr H Garner explain it a little it's educational P capacity it's not fire code it's there's this much square footage in each room and um

057each kid gets so many square feet go ahead yeah and and I'll just um I I'm just going to go from the publication I believe that that each of you have at your table and it's the summary of the facility study um and and so it this is um pretty much taking the the the entire facili study with each individual school about a Year's worth of work and put into the summary document and one of the pages in section four um 4.1 talks about school capacity and how they've arrived at that and so I'm just going to explain that read that as as it was um as it was done by um rrmm and the element El schools well well first of all I think it's important to also understand that no two schools even

058though the school's Footprints may be almost exactly alike that doesn't mean that every school has the exact same programs and programs oftentimes Drive the size of the space that a school needs um so since schools capacity can be determined through multiple me methods uh and it's affected by varying programs and building features so for square footage for elementary schools the the per foot student estimates that R rmm Used um were an average square foot per student figures over the last 5 years in the state of Virginia as provided by the Virginia Department of Education which is 128 square foot per student and and that's a very common way to to get a starting point for where you may go um to to begin with and then you add in what different programs now often times

059the elementary schools aren't going to necessarily have many different programs but you can imagine that as you get to middle and high school but it there's consistency to levels uh to these levels leading to our recommendation or rm's recommendation to use 125 square foot per student at the Elementary School level for the level of service standards for schools ranging from 750 to 1,050 and there is basically in the back of that book you have back of that chart exhibit A and B and C the state actually puts out a spreadsheet I mean a um worksheet of which you simply plug in the numbers and that's what they're recommended educational capacity is so I I wish it was just as easy as oh this is what you do but of course nothing can be that easy

060for middle schools um the square foot per student estimates um is 145 square foot per student at the middle school level for level of service standards for schools ranging from 1,50 to 1350 but for 750 to 1,50 student middle schools we recommend using 160 Square ft per student that's Middle School level and then for high school level um It's 190 square foot per student um and that's that's taking like I said taking into account the elementary the middle school and the high school capacity worksheets that's put out by the Virginia Department of Education that's how they come up with it as that's a standard and then once you start talking about programs and here good example auditoriums High School renovation auditoriums much more square foot right and then that was removed so much less square

061foot right so that's how programs added and and deleted and so with those numbers would give you a um a standard starting point based on the number of students in the school do those I wish I could explain it better but it's it's it's not an easy thing to to do those Square footages change any for kids with IEPs or 504s um there there are certain requirements based on the number of students who can be in a classroom and based on some of those factors yeah um that that's right um all kinds of different measures could be like that um for for example this the shop the a area there's certain requirements for how big that has to be per number of students that can be in that space that so it's it's not just

062one you know cafeteria as example um certainly any place that has um potential for hazard like gymnasium is a good example so depending on the number of students depending on the number of size uh the number of students and the size of the school will determine the percentage or the size per square foot for the students and again that was for elementary schools um rrmm recommended using 135 Square ft per student for middle schools was 160 Square ft per student and for the high schools 190 square foot per student as a baseline to answer your question about the fifth grade move to middle school and in this 8th grade moveing to um high school that's a possibility um we like to keep we would like to keep our configurations K5 68 912 but if we

063had to do that that would be a possibility there is um capacity at the high school for additional students and there's capacity at the middle school for additional students thank you all for that both schools like if both um I mean both campuses like if we had the same issue in central M so if I'm doing my math correctly and we're figuring an average of 125 square foot per pupil right now stalsberg is over capacity would that be correct the information you gave us the last time we met strawsburg High School no I'm looking at Sandy Hook Elementary okay we have prek through 12 enrollment fall 2024 of students if we multiply that by 125 Square fet we're up to 103,6 125 on page seven you'll see the the information from R rmm and it

064says um and that it's 829 page seven of this book yeah that's what I'm looking at right now and you'll see they're at 96.6 2% capacity they're capacity is 858 what number are they using per pupil for square footage using 135 right what number are they using for what is that 125 Square ft we're up to 103 over 103,6 125 Square ft and it shows Sandy Hook is only being 87,4 39 Square ft they used I think they used 125 but they also used this worksheet okay yeah so to calculate it I think they used 135 35 35 135 would be even more yeah it would be higher I thought it was if we go to 135 we're almost at 112,000 Square ft yeah uh I wish they were here to explain it that that's

065the reality of it is that it's um it just concerns what I was hoping we would talk about when we were at triple Tech about two months ago but just concerns me with how much construction's going on in both strawsburg and Woodstock were like right on the brink I mean the bottom line is it's it's close or overc capacity and it's you know there's no question about it I mean it's it's yeah I mean it's obvious and um you know I was just by there two weeks ago and there was 10 10 town houses I believe were built someone said there's close to another set of going up now so and I know in 2016 the company that we were working with then said you know when it gets to around 85% capacity is when

066you want to start planning because of the point that someone made about how long it takes to you know this is going to be built next year you know so and to answer the other question these were in no particular order a b or c yeah any other questions about any of those okay and then we have our capital projects so um at the last meeting I said I would give you um some updated prices on a roof and some flooring and then a fence at Ashby Le elementary school so you can see on um that second column I have whether it's urgent necessary and then the estimated cost and a few comments and then uh right now we're looking at Safety and Security and I think if you're looking at this the capital Improvement

067plan you can see all of these starting on page c19 so we have it out for a 5-year plan the only things I put on here was for this fiscal this coming fiscal [Applause] year so we have clock upgrades which is necessary fence typically if they don't get funded one year then we move it to a following year so just know that that's you know that's a a possibility um a lot of our necessary actually comes off pretty early because um we we typically go with the Urgent first doesn't mean we always have to because a necessary could be um could be one of those projects we want to move forward with the total of Safety and Security is uh 281,000 000 and Ur the Urgent in that category was 145,000 and anything that is

068in yellow that's in your um CIP book um either has an updated price or is new correct is new to the list so you repeat that again yeah anything that is highlighted in yellow is either new or has an updated price let me okay so heating um HVAC the total for H uh heating ventilation air conditioning is $823,000 urgent is 383,000 Roofing I would say um under Roofing that is probably one of our number one projects that we'll want to get done this summer is replacing the roof at ww Robinson Elementary School is that correct that is correct doors and locks 120 again it's necessary not urgent other projects you'll see I included both the renovation um new build of triplet Tech and then the construction of a new Elementary School it's not currently included

069in fiscal year 2026 but I wanted to include it there just as to keep a a placeholder um we anticipate that the um all of the architectural fees uh for triplet Tech will be 3.6 million very similar for a new elementary school that includes from design through construction so renovation of a new bus garage is is there renovation of Maintenance Shop is is there we do have some money in this year CIP for the bus garage it's 200,000 200,000 that has already been funded we started our playground upgrades at our elementary schools we we still have some work to do there yes ma'am um no you said that we already um a portion 200,000 200 have they been done already or nothing's been done at this point uh carpet replace carpet with tile and the

070driver's ed room room and then replace carpet with at Ashby Elementary School so the top one at 140,000 is replace carpet with tile at ashp elementary school and then the bottom one is for the driver side room at strawsburg high school and if you look at your C we have um a couple of those Replacements over a couple of years drainage at triplet Tech increase power uh for at triplet Tech has anybody made those phone calls to find out if that power is available in that area so I know our Architects did some high level work and yes the answer is yes so the total for maintenance there's more but the total for maintenance was 8.3 million urgent is urgent is 22 million it's 2 million and then we have transportation I think Mr long

071would tell us our activity buses are early 2000s is that right we have four activity buses early 2000s so 20 some 20 couple years old 20 yes any questions so far so we have our transportation at 1.6 for all for this ask and then urgent is 1 point I 1.4 million so for example what did we get last year for the whole Capital Improvement three all that3 3.3 million reest what is it eight something this time yeah hold on uh yourself 10 urgence 3.3 and that's typically what you know what gets funded so and remember that the if we have any car carry forward funds sorry I know I'm going through this fast um but renovate or build new triplet Tech or construction of new elementary school I think if we ask the Board of

072Supervisors to allocate that money back to us for um for architectural fees I think they would be interested in hearing that I don't know that they would fund it but they would definitely be interested in in that request once we have those plans M let's say for the elementary school based on what kayin told us earlier at that point we would be able to start applying for Grants correct you could apply for that construction Grant it is I don't want to say unlikely but we probably do not qualify because we are not a fiscally distressed locality and those pay 10 20 or 30% based on your LCI we are probably looking at a 10 or 20% of total project cost funding should we qualify when I was looking at the projects that have been funded

073in the past um there were a couple that weren't fiscally distressed but they were at at 10% of the total cost so if you think of 10% of $40 million that's $4 million that's you know that's a nice sum of money for um but you know only a couple of them were funded out of the 30 projects that were funded so thank you so what was the total again for the Urgent 3.3 so is there anything on there that you would like to see deleted changed added moved it's a lot and I believe Mr ORS would say there's probably other things that didn't get that didn't get included on the list that could have been um somber any questions I am am amazed at what you and your staff have been able to accomplish the

074past couple of months just I just can't imagine the amount of work that that entails and we're U deeply gratified that you have made it accessible to us and somewhat understandable so you've got some very very graphic and pointed and focused things for us to take a look at so so kudos to your staff and and for you for letting this out in such a cogent manner we we really appreciate it at the March 13th meeting We'll be asking for decisions on on all three of these things so on our um Budget on um the long-term facilities and then also on the capital so all three of those will be um will be for action and then we will forward them to the Board of Supervisors the very next day so County Administrator and the

075Board of Supervisors to consider and then the following Monday we will be talking with them regarding our requests so so we need to really focus in on those things that that we're interested in and make sure they they get some good heiring so and if there's you know if there's something that is under the necessary column that needs to have um have a focus then we need to know that as well because the reality is you know when we go to look at things that we're not going to find then that's where we will you know look first if you know if we ask for $10 million then we get three that's where we'll look first as necessary versus our gym now why would you um like for example The increased power supplied for new

076programs at triplet Tech um but you have it as necessary wouldn't that be is it because urgent is only safety in or how did you because I would think that that would be kind of urgent if you can't really teach in this book this one it tells how we um determine whether it's urgent or necessary and it is on page five is that right yes it shows the um evaluation criteria CU I would have thought that would have been kind of urgent and however it's triplet Tech right yeah if there's going to be a major renovation we don't want to chase um we don't want to do an electrical upgrade if we're going to do a renovation too so you know that's we have to take that into consideration as well that's right did we

077ever do that um did we separate that for yeah da Dr hner has a number I don't know if he brought it I know he brought it last time I don't know if he brought it this time and what was what was the number the triplet Tech um if we renovate a triplet Tech how much could come off of CIP yeah so I don't know I know he brought it it was it's about a million a little over a million dollars um actually you take that that's this is the same thing you have but um thank it it's without it's it's with the triplet Tech renovation but not the triplet Tech projects okay so would be like double dipping almost kind of and and it's in the title in the upper leftand corner it's it's

078this chart without the tripl tech projects or the desirable projects so it has the necessary and Urgent projects and it has the tripet tech and the and the elementary school in there but it just took out the six or seven different projects that wouldn't be necessary triple Tech if we did a full renovation and and those talli to a little over a million dollar and we know if those were mostly urgent or they were mostly necessary necessary okay yeah any fun questions on the U on the budget thank you Dr Shepard for that no rest for the weary you're uh you're going to discuss the uh status of the school board Norms is that correct sir item 2.3 so attached to the agenda items were the current School Board Norms as well as a draft

079document that highlighted all of the proposed modifications from all of the school board members um the and myself the drafts um School Board Norms was presented as an informational item at the Thursday February 13th meeting and tonight there's an opportunity to discuss the Norms so so are we going through these tonight and line in line out or um not sure how we want to proceed but let's make sure we we understand what we're dealing with so um attached to uh our agenda uh are the school board Norms that were adopted in April of this year but there were as I'm if if I'm corre correct there were no changes at that point it was uh default to the to the previous School Board Norms uh but they were reopt it if you will and so

080that is one item the second one that is there is um titled draft shendo Schoolboard norms and this is a um unless I'm incorrect this is a a a draft that was submitted by Mr is carinia and that's uh available there and there are suggested changes um clearly discernable there so we can go through those uh and discuss those um I have um I have uh created a draft myself on suggested changes that I would like to see uh and it's uh they've been handed out to the Schoolboard members but they're not not electronically on the uh uh in the in the agenda where is that at uh it was handed out to you it's this one that's in red okay so um we're um perhaps we can dispense with a looking at the uhu

081at the original um County School Board norms and we can uh have Mrs Carino speak to her draft and after that I could speak to my draft does that does that sound like a plausible way ahead where is Miss carano's draft so miss Carino's information was included with the couple of things that I added so it's a combination of both um both of those um yeah but I can it is so um now the one called Do you have do you have the you you have the I've got the one we had from April and then I've got the draft two okay the draft two is the is Gloria because what you what is in there are the line line that I'm thinking that's that's the case the the line in line outs are the

082ones that Gloria has um has suggested it might be one um there might be one or more that aren't glorious I'm not sure okay so yours is not electronic yours is Prim that's correct yeah t um so chairman Barlo the the draft that's on board docs is a combination you had one change I had a change um Mr gut Shaw had a change and Gloria had maybe one or two changes that that is in the okay so I stand corrected so it is it contains several suggested yes up up up to today yes correct um Lor you want to take the lead in talking about this because I think most of these changes are yours uh you can skip over the others to hold on I need to look up have compter me just look

083it up is that from the yeah this in the board knocks yeah give me a second let me uh look it up here while Gloria is taking a look at that um Dr Shepard you indicated that several of us had had suggested changes that were included here that were not glorious we could speak to those perhaps to begin with and then U and then finish up with with Gloria so um let me uh I'm going to kind of scroll through here and the first item that was suggested as a change is under Schoolboard meetings second bullet says the chair will continuously and my recommendation was to make that continually uh making sure that we don't assume that there's a never ending polling but that it does happen in a continual or regular uh regular way

084um that's only one I suggested um Dr Shepard did you you had added one in so the next bullet point under that I believe was either um it may have been miss carlino that all school board members shall have until noon on the day uh that the agenda for a meeting is made public at 300 p.m. to include items to the agenda for information purposes neither the chair nor the vice chair will have the discretion to keep items submitted by this deadline out of the agenda only the member submitting the item May withdraw it from consideration believe that came from Miss carlino right okay so but um but did you did you mention earlier that you had made an insertion so let's just go to yours and we'll go back and Gloria can hit each

085of hers in in in order so on page two under closed session my recommendation um was board members agreed to maintain confidentiality regarding all confidential matters discussed in closed session and um then the bullet points the first two bullet points confidential information shared in closed session will not be disclosed to the public or media and then the second bullet point to main confidentiality electronic devices will not be used during Clos session and the third bullet point I believe is Miss Carino's all Clos sessions will be recorded okay so yeah so she'll speak to that and then one more I added we're trying to round them up keep going I um added attorney accessibility and I just said this um section will outline the process by which Schoolboard members can seek legal guidance from Schoolboard attorney

086uh the section will be developed in collaboration with the school with the school board attorney so and did you me did you mention that Mr Guta had had any input here yeah it was just one one one word yeah at the yeah at the bottom um it's page four it had his and um the superintendent or their designating okay okay Gloria you want to pick it up from there um yeah I just trying to look for it um because yes so my concern was uh with the agenda setting is that generally we have and I spoken to the people and and throughout the years um that members have had until um the Friday before the uh uh the Friday before the week that we have a meeting before the the agenda is is made um

087public um as the deadline usually to submit new items and the reason is because sometimes things just come up at the last minute and we want to make sure that uh we can include those and those are in line with the um uh the statute that actually says that um it only uh the only requirement is that the well first it says that every board member is allowed to um submit items um but then it also says I'm trying to look for it that um basically you have to do it before the agenda is made public and and I'm reading actually from section B School Board governance and operations it says the preparation of the proposed agenda shall be the responsibility of the school board chair with the assistance of the superintendent any member of

088the school board May submit terms for inclusion uh for the proposed agenda uh a copy of the proposed agenda and an agenda packets and materials is made available for inspection um to the public uh at the same time the documents are sorry it's just really small print um are furnished to the Schoolboard members unless the materials are exempt under the Virginia um Freedom of Information Act um so I I believe this is how how it's always been done and I think that's the best way to um to have a deadline I have no problem if you want to have you know an agenda setting meeting where you kind of um come up with the general idea of how you know when we're going to be doing budget when we're going to be doing this or

089that that's fine but my thing is that we always have to leave it open in case things do show up and um the best way to do it is kind of the way that we always understood it was that you had until um the Friday before you actually set up the agenda now I have no problem if you want to do it you know noon on Friday or even if you want to do it close up business on Thursday um but basically just leave it open so that if things come up I mean we had this problem that last semester when we we're getting a lot of letters and a lot of parents that were concerned about the attendance policy um so we need to discuss that as soon as possible uh or things that

090have deadlines that we should be able to include those in there so that's that was why I um submitted that and I'm trying to see exactly where it is in this draft because it talks about the it's under agenda setting the third bullet is that what you're looking for until noon on the day at the agenda meeting yes so so yes that's basically all I wanted to do and I'm trying to see what that deadline is on Friday it says until noon on the day that the agenda for a meeting is made public at 3 P.M I just can't it's not that that's um okay no no you're looking at um my my oh so this is yours oh okay I thought this was the one that you were gting okay so yeah so that's

091basically why I did that and um that was um that's this is not what I should be looking at um so that that was my idea with that um uh along with that I I would like and I think I did propose that at some point that I think we need to start um also labeling who's doing what when we propose any kind of agenda you know who what's who's the member proposing it um so that if we have any questions or if we want to know you know who's doing this that we know who to go to um as opposed to just leave it um without any kind of ENT identification okay so that the one called identification of all request for information that's a that's a new that's an addition that was an

092addition to that just kind of label all of those requests so we know who's doing who's doing what time limit time limits and we had the time limits was um it was just an idea of if we wanted to shorten the meetings or we want to make sure that everybody has the same amount of time um I mean we've had this in the past and nobody's really setting um taking time um I know personally I've been cut off twice when I'm being making my remarks so I wanted to make sure that you we either leave it open for anybody to wants who wants to talk for however long we we're going to allow them to talk or we should just limited and and then have somebody actually taking the time um so that everybody has

093the same amount of time um when they're speaking and the last all closed sessions will be recorded I think that's yeah so the closed sessions um well I'm concerned that um right now I I know there are things that I private or they're under legal council that we cannot be talking about and and that's completely understandable um yet at the same time there are times that we have been and I can think of even one right now which I can't go into the details but that we were getting advice or counsel from somebody else and um it's it's actually going to be um influential on possible future actions and um unfortunately because we don't have any recording on that we don't really have any way to go back and use that as a board um

094in any future um actions that that may be happening now those would not be open to the public um those would just be used for us um as as needed and um and I know that there are some other boards that actually do that so it was a matter of I've been told that we could either have uh the clerk actually take minutes of of what's going on or we could just record it and that way we have it as a as a source of information for the future and I think that was it right I think that's the last addition you had okay okay anything else glor no and and again I wanted to say um with regards to the first point with the agenda setting I understand that there's a concern if somebody

095needs help with somebody else drafting the policy or the school board making some um kind of um research and that's fine um what we're talking about here is putting it just even for information which is kind of what we've done with other stuff we're not doesn't really mean that we need to be discussing it and voting it at the next meeting it just means that this item has been brought up um so that people know that this is something that we're going to be talking about um in my case I usually do my own research and and draft my own policy um so if I have it ready I can just go ahead and introduce it if I need help or if I need the school board to get some information then it would just

096be an opportunity um to let them know that that's something that we need to work on and then whoever uh needs to look into that can can look into that um but I just think we should have um and God bless you uh a deadline that is the same one every single time as opposed to having to look at a sheet of paper and see oh when was the agenda setting meeting um I think it's a lot easier for us as members to know okay the Friday before the Thursday meeting is when we have um the deadline and if I might be a reminder that this is the problem that we had in 2020 was that that wasn't followed um so I just think it be better to just go ahead and make it uniform

097so that we always know what the deadline is okay the uh the draft that uh that I have had distribute to the school board members uh has um my um suggested changes in red which is a little um misleading because if I move something out of sequence but kept it the way it was it still shows up as a change so um everything that's in red isn't necessarily something that uh that I put into change but and as we go through it you'll see that I just probably just or maybe have just shifted it around so let me Begin by saying I believe that um in looking at uh the school board um requirements under Virginia code and under the powers under the powers and duties of said and also the policies that U that

098are that are in under they're in in power now uh I I I I looked at the Schoolboard norms and realized that um there was um there was a lot of uh kind of squishy stuff in there and it's it's some of was subjective and actually value some of that subjectivity uh because we're talking about Norms which is the way we would one would normally do business and so um we we can't necessarily put a lot of sharp edges around them but we can try to be as specific as we can and with lessons learned over the past few years I I TR I U I did this exercise with that in mind so um so the first thing um I I I did was was indicate that may that after we've we have read

099and agreed to this not this but our final document that uh that uh in that Spirit of collegiality that we we sign in date that we we understand that this this um sets the school board norms for us um under uh so there's nothing under really change under our responsibilities how we govern there used to be a phrase that said board members agree to being involved to our individual lover of comfort uh I'm not sure exactly what what that meant um but it it it uh it ended with um top right in the collegial friendly manner uh and will strive for consensus and I put consensus agreements in work in closed sessions rather than the majority rule which is the norm for our regular Schoolboard meetings understanding that in Schoolboard meetings we are under the

100not control of but we're under the guidance of Robert's Rules uh but in in other meetings we as we did tonight that we try to do is try to come to consensus um I did put down here a new section on Robert rules of orders because it it speaks specifically to some of the comments that Mrs Carini just made um so for instance um discussion under action items me each member is allowed up to 10 minutes to speak uh and not just the first person who speaks so uh I think we need to um default to the Roberts rules which allow each member to speak up to 10 minutes and I do um I I actually includeed in there uh that that be adjudicated by an appointed timekeeper which which we have which we have

101started to do also there's a understanding that no speaker speaks twice until every member has the opportunity to speak once um on occasion uh I take uh Gloria's point the board may want to limit subsequent discussion to five minutes but I would um pres I I would suggest that that would have to be determined by the board on a a case by case basis um I think it was um L was it you you said that a member May Reserve time or yield time to other members but um that's not that's not permitted under Robert's Rules so there is there is no yielding time to other other other members um and then there is a there was a portion in there in which stakeholders request information which is I I did not change at all

102but I just move or I I changed it slightly um to indicate the stakeholder addresses the board as as opposed to uh I think I think it said citizen or something other than that since we have recently changed our rules to only allow stakeholders to speak U so That Remains the Same um in the closed session uh I concur that we board members agree to ma maintain confidentiality um information shared in close session did not disclose to any entity and to maintain confidentiality electronic devices will not be used um we we had a lot of discussion this this year about how to bring an item to board for future action so I wanted to make sure that was C captured rather precisely so um so there's an introductory paragraph there um that isn't signifant only

103minutely changed um but it does say that the chair will contact members of the school board regarding poal agenda concerns to determine if there are any requests to include an item or report for an upcoming or future meeting and alternatively board members can individually submit agenda request to the school board chair so it can go either way that's that's an addition the chair in consultation with the superintendent May accept the recommendation or suggest another Avenue of communications uh I note that the last third of this document sets forth another neat um set of um ways in which the school this the school board communicates with various members of our school system and not everything is a policy item uh sometimes items can be resolved by Schoolboard members talking to uh other members of the staff

104teachers administrators the superintendent and those sometimes the chairs I've done several times will suggest I don't think this is a policy item I think this is something that I would suggest you talk the superintendent about and so um I take um I take that responsibility on myself because uh it is indeed the um the responsibility of the school board chair with the assistant U assistance of the superintendent to prepare the the agenda um there's a fin there's another bullet there it said the chair will continually pull members regarding their desire to includ the topics um additionally School Board member comments during work session or regular meetings a board may present his or her question I'm not sure we've done this enough uh but I think we started to do it and this is not a

105change this is what's already in there uh that a board member may present his or her question or idea to the board at that point discussion can ensue and following discussion um uh if the superintendent um is if if there's a consensus to include the topic the board will direct the superintendent to pursue the topic uh and then the superintendent will keep the board pressed of its progress the chair will coordinate with the member who raised the issue in in conjunction with the superintendent determine of the topic is for information or action issue will then be scheduled accordingly based on relevance urgency workload and other factors now uh if it the uh the final bullet there is uh is where glory and I probably diverge which is to allow proper time to consider the nature

106and scope of the agenda request it should be provided to the chair Vice chair Superintendent at least a week prior to the agenda setting session uh maybe a week is too long because there are things that pop up but I think think having items just dropped on the agenda setting session that very day is uh counter to having a good preparation meeting and being able to prepare well for a meeting at which we're trying to set an agenda for the next month and even Beyond with information items action items and so forth so I I think uh it I think it would be U not a a good use of our time to kind of have to plan everything at the last second when last minute requests are coming in for uh agenda items just

107as we're as we're as we're holding the meeting one thing that I've um pulsed some of the other divisions around the state and uh I've added this this particular recommendation on policy and oversight that since the core responsibilities the Schoolboard relate to the development of policies and providing oversight of our school laws our core methodologies relate to deliberate planning information analysis so we're charged by a law to secure as full information as possible about the conduct of the public schools that's what we're each individually called to do so I think our objectives should be focused on um reaching a clear understanding of the macro challenges facing our schools as opposed to the more involved day to day off operations which are more properly the concerns of the superintendent uh so with that in mind I'm

108suggesting what an agenda items brought forward which indicates that it might be an issue with policy ramifications it should undergo an evaluation within the current set of policies and to do that um that agenda item will likely be passed to the policy committee to provide analysis and context regarding the Virginia code and policies and that policy committee will work with a member request the agenda item and developing a recommendation for the items in this position I note that we have um had several policy items the last few months where um we didn't rush the Judgment but we kind of hurried and maybe didn't get the full import of what concerns there were with use of cell phones or or the or discipline or more recently um attendance policies and um and I believe u I

109believe a more um studied approach would probably help us there um Freedom of Information Act requests uh members of the school board of individually May Avail themselves of FO of requests as do other members of the community but with rates commenor belonging to an educational organization so uh if one of our members wants to fo you uh that's fine uh but uh they can take advantage of the uh discount uh at at making that foer request um but that only when the corporate body uh through a majority voter consensus agrees to a Foy a request um should it be done with no charge assessed and uh I I've got it I've got something in here by um uh about the entire hery by the hired by the school board which I think is essentially the

110one that's that's already there um uh and reiterate under under that first bullet that the school board has a responsibility to develop and propose the procedures P pertaining to the methodology of interaction between school board members and the attorney directly with the attorney prior to the employment of that attorney um and I think guess we can remove yeah we should take that yes it was a Mr kall just pointed out that there's a reference in the old one to vsba conference which I think we' like to see expunged as well um I'm sorry I took time to do that but I I just wanted to make sure that um you had an idea of what motivated me to to suggest some of those changes so um we're certainly open to any further discussion on on

111this topic well I was just GNA say again I mean this is the way it's been done for many years so I don't understand why we're all of a sudden changing it um and I I didn't what was your um recommendation again for accepting items um at the at the this at the agenda setting meeting or um I mean no I mean the items can come up school board M comments you can pass them to me when I through the school board Clerk or whatever ask you for your so any number of ways you can bring me but what's the deadline because I I guess my concern is um I remember a year ago when we first talked about this I mean you had said that um you know the chair and the vice chair

112don't really have any prerogative over this that they're just leading the meeting so um so what we've for the first half of the the last year um I was introducing every policy that I introduced and I introduced most of them uh were introduced on by that Friday before the Thursday it wasn't until this last October when all of a sudden we were told no no you have to talk about it in the board member meeting and then you have to do it by the agenda setting meeting so that was the first time I ever heard that again we were talking about things that were um that that had a deadline at the time and we were talking about the things that the the community was bringing up and we're talking about uh the voter registration

113um policy that I wanted to um introduce so there was certainly a deadline a a time limit to that so that was again the first time that I ever heard about that and I started asking other people and people who've been in the board before or people who were involved in the 2020 uh hoopla and they all said the same thing they all said well no you always have until that Friday to um set up the agenda did we did we change that that's on October we did no October we did you you you said quite a bit that I want to respond to so um we've had this this discussion a year ago this this didn't just start uh and uh I believe every policy request that You' put forward has been accepted by

114the chair uh and um but there there we did have a b weave a lot of issues that that came up all at once uh and it was uh kind of a new day because not that many uh policy issues came up under the old board it's just it's just the way it was uh so when we have requirements for things that need to be policies or not just policies just find out about them find out what our next steps are how we can resolve them so forth we had a three a three-part process which we talked about which is bring the topic up uh we get an information brief that the superintendent provides from the staff or from administrators teachers and and then after that information is kind of assimilated and analyzed then we

115as a board decide what the action is based on that uh and it could be that we refine a regulation and that's basically what we did with the attendance thing we we didn't pass a new uh policy but but we reviewed the regulation so we understood when we thought that there was a cell phone policy that was required and you were probably the thought leader on that um then we decided there was a policy necessary we drove ahead with it but there was still due process of getting the information making sure that it was scheduled and that the Community uh Schoolboard members who are charged with gaining all this information we're we're we're charged with finding this stuff out had a chance to do an analysis and find it out so that we didn't rush

116a judgment I know of some several divisions that actually lost the cell phone policy because they ran to it and then some good considerations about why maybe you shouldn't pass it that way came up and the and the cell phone policy lost and and so these things can happen and so asking for a gestation period of these things while we investigate them I think it's smart for an organization that does OverWatch the way the school board does but I'm not disputing that at all or questioning that my whole point is right now what what I'm trying to decide is what is the deadline that we have and if we're going to continue doing what we've done all along or what this board has done all along of having that Friday at noon be the final

117deadline for that um again nobody's taking away what we're talking about is we're going to put that on a Friday and then at the next meeting is going to be on the informational agenda then the following meeting we're going to talk about it then the following meeting we're so we're already talking about two month we're going to be we stream we've streamed we stream lighted quite a bit and the point is the the agenda setting session is a time when the superintendent who's thought about these things that are happening the chairman I've been receiving stuff the vice chair we come in and we kind of put this thing together uh ready for prime time right then that's not when we need new input you know we needed input the week before two weeks before so

118that when we can went to the agenda setting session we were prepare and not waiting till that very meeting where we have to come up with the agenda to get our input it just doesn't make sense to get the input at the exact moment that you're going to put design the output we we needed time we need time to get ready to have a good agenda setting session what makes no sense I mean it's not like we're bringing all this policies every single time what makes no sense is for us to tie our hands and say no we cannot accept anything until you talk about it at the board which by the way um Mr TR never talked about um his policy that he wanted to bring today so if we're going to be following

119that uh line of um of of reasoning then we should not even have put this in the agenda for last time much less today um because again you said that we needed to put that as a as a as a requirement last October what we had talked about were things that we had already talked about in previous board member comments so I had talked about it and he had talked about it as well and yet we were told well no no you have to wait until the agenda setting meeting so you know it's very confusing um I understand again I I have no problem with having the agenda setting meetings to put the the Masterpiece of what we're going to be doing in terms of we're going to be talking about budget we're going to

120be talking about you know uh teachers we're going to be talking about all that that's fine but it makes no sense whatsoever for us as a board to tie our hands and say we cannot absolutely bring up anything else that comes that is timely or that the constituents wants or that is an emergency that we have to wait until the next agenda setting meeting to kind of propose it and then at the board member comes to talk about it and then finally be able to put it in the agenda at the following month to start the timeline to start the timeline of okay now we're going to put in the informational agenda now we're going to talk about it now we're going to vote on it I mean we're talking about we're handicapping ourselves to

121deal with issues that could be coming that are imperative for us to deal with right away well well see we have never stopped an issue the issues have rolled I mean we have I'll just refer to people who been around there we we have we have probably discussed and taken for Action probably more policy items than any school board in probably last six or eight years uh they've they've come through none of them have been stopped none have been steamrolled none have been vetoed uh they've all gotten their Innings uh and we have had a chance to um to discuss this if anything we've kind of supercharged them to to to to get a bunch through now uh when I put this in here um I said that of course there always are chances for

122something that has to be uh prioritized it's happening now it's an emergency whatever not so much with us because we are the school board okay we're not operations okay but if there is something that happens then we reserve the right to move it out we reserve the the right to take to take it and and uh and uh take it an expeditious way so we have that capability uh and so certainly we can do it and we are school board corporately if we decide to do something by a majority vote we'll do it because that's the only way we're legally allowed to move forward so we can we can do it uh and we can and and there are so many there are at least three four different ways that it can get before the

123board as as an agenda item that it shouldn't be any POS problem at all to get it on so let me finish the last thing and I'll go right back to you so um so if we can get this information uh things that you you you guys want to do I mean Schoolboard members want to do um four or five days ahead of time so that we can smooth out the meeting and not have to deal with it uh after the superintendent already probably she pretty good about having a set of agenda things that need uh our cognizance or at least our our our attention so just to have a good meeting a well planned meeting we need to have these things in in in some degree of uh headit thought so we can put

124it on the agenda disputed that well that's all we need to do that's all it says but what I'm say okay so that there's no problem with that but right now so how right now what is the deadline if I want to put um something in the next agenda uh in March say in March I want to bring something up when's my deadline um I'm suggesting seven days so seven days from what what day from the before the meeting agenda set meeting before the meeting or the agenda setting meeting the agenda setting meeting okay so if I want to bring something in March what's my deadline the well we've already did we already set that one is is the March I think it no we were just told today March is set February 28th this

125Friday so there's two March we have two March meetings right the agenda were Emil February 28th for the March 13th and the March 24th meeting so we haven't set that one yet and I I don't even right now we're all trying to figure out what the deadline is whereas it be so much easier to say and that's fine if you you can say priority you know give it by this but if we just had a every a date every single time every single month that we know by this you know seven days before the meeting you can submit that I mean I don't know if you want to make it Thursday or Friday before the meeting I'm fine with that problem is for example in October the agenda for October and November you guys set

126it up in September so when Mike and I came up with this issue yes when we came up with this stuff we were told oh no the agenda setting meeting was December 22nd for both October and November so that's why it had to be bumped until January so in January we were talking about the elections because you know the elections that happened in November the voter registration the voter registration policy that we passed that I had already submitted back in October and the idea was to actually have it passed before the elections in case anybody had any doubts about what we were going to do with the voter registration that didn't get talked about and and passed until um after the elections okay in January so let let me respond three things one is you

127don't have to wait until the week of the agenda setting session anytime you have an an item all you have to do is let me know let the superintendent no we bring it out let me finish so so you don't have to wait for that deadline that's just a suspense St right so if you want to come in a month ahead two weeks Ah that's fine now that particular issue was one I thought might be one that was time sensitive so I went to the superintendent and said maybe this is one we need to FasTrack and she said the way that we um I'm trying to find words I'll I'll try to be fair to you the the way that we regulate this in school now is they can't do that anyway that it was

128prohibited at that point to do that so I'm saying to myself we have a sequence of things this one is not one that has to be passed this time but we put it on the agenda and it works its way through and it did and it went through and it went through I think six nothing and and there there you go it's a it's a success story but but it allows us to to do deliberate planning and to be able to to bring proper information to bear on it and you can bring it anytime you want and we accept it as as a topic for the next meeting so I can bring no no no so that's the point no no you you no no you you cannot insist on something you bring that day

129it's going to happen at the me next meeting you you can he always been I don't has it always been that way yes it has been this way Friday the Friday of the setting meeting we had until noon that day to call you up and say hey Dennis this is what I'm hearing I need it informational no that's what you assumed because I sent you an email to that effect and you said you understood you know so we just let's ask the people that have been here for years can we get somebody well can I just add something do you know what happened in 20120 yeah I'm aware okay you're aware so you remember what the problem was the problem was that they they they were expecting to have that agenda setting U that I

130mean that agenda already released on that Friday it wasn't until the last minute that they went ahead and and and um released it and they had already put the name change for the following week right because that's the way they always did it which is what we're trying to keep from happening no but that that would be for us to do for an information so the problem with them was that they went for a vote and difference and so we'll get it on the information docket we'll get it out there it doesn't but but you understand that doesn't mean for Action the next time it means information and then action the next time I've never said that I wanted it for Action we've said all along for and that's why we decided it in January

131when we put it in October in fact I believe that when I had um my draft for this I actually said that it would be to put it in the informational agenda I never said that I wanted it for action it's supposed to be in for the informational agenda well this is nice and tight now so you should real happy with it um no it's not nice in time because it's saying it's not saying that we can do that before the Friday he saying that we have to do it no that we have to have this with us at all times anytime you want but you can't give it to us the day of the agenda have to do it anytime before then you got it that's not the way it's always been the point

132is true oh you Dr shepher could you clarify that clarify was it not that as long as you got it to you guys before noon the Friday that you set the agenda it would make it onto the informational for the next meeting so the agenda setting meeting for this coming for the March 13th meeting is February the 28th you're talking about that Friday because I think you're talking about February 28th but I think Gloria is talking about March the 6 it was always March the 6th it was always that Friday before no the agenda setting not as long as I've been here that's been as long as we've been here yeah it's always the agenda setting meeting um was when all of the stuff was added to the agenda but we every single uh policy

133that I introduced this last year I did it going by that Friday deadline before the meeting and he was accepted was accepted as a topic and and we put it into into the schedule and it cranked its way right on through right so why can't we keep on doing that we are no we're not we didn't do it in October that literally that's what happened that was a problem that's why we stood here for 45 minutes that one time when the people were here because we had talked about it before and Other Board member comments uh Mike had talked about his stuff board member comments we had had in fact that room was full of people who were talking about the whole attendance issue so we tried to add it in October for the November

134one and we were told no you cannot do it because the agenda setting meeting had been already done in September for both October and November so we were not able to do it for that meeting we had to wait until I Remember December or Janu that happens it happens that that there are schedules that we want and and other not yours doesn't take presidence over everybody else's it's not every it's not that mine takes presidence over anybody else is is that we should all have one agenda one one deadline that we can all follow and if things come up you know for example that the idea with the voter registration came because you know it came in October um through the sbma and through the middle resolution because this was a problem that other counties

135were having and Lon County was one of them Fairfax County was another one and we had all these people talking about how that was the real problem so media resolution had actually asked us you know if the school boards start passing these policies maybe we can ask our legislators to actually enact this into legislation um and that's why we said well you know let's go ahead and make it as as quickly as we can you know and I'm thankful that we have Dr Shepard here that was already doing something along those lines but what if she weren't here what if it was a different board uh superintendent that I would have ascertained that that's why it didn't take prec this is not how you do things you don't just do why if this happens you

136do this if this happens you do that no you have rules you have deadlines and you follow those deadlines and the rules and then everybody has to be able to understand everybody should be able to tell off the top of their heads what's the deadline for me to submit some policy you know I shouldn't have to be thinking oh my gosh I need to call Cheryl what are the what are the deadlines oh my gosh okay pass the deadline you know I I don't know why you if you want to put something before the group all you have you don't even have to worry about what they it is you can just call me and say I want it I want it on the agenda I'm not going to tell you it's going to happen

137the next 6 days or the next 3 weeks that's why if it's a policy item I think it needs to go to policy committee what find out the ramifications from it and make sure that it has its Fair hearing you know the the the Schoolboard chair is responsible for setting the agenda and I've done the best I could at having an efficient way of taking everybody's input making sure that nothing gets left behind or doesn't skip the line and to do so I regularly check check with the superintendent about what is imminent and with the rest of you about what we need to do to keep the wheels turning here okay you don't like that but you've been you've been the recipient of the largest lares because yours are the ones yes rece lares I've

138been working I've been actually doing policy yes you receed the larges of your request to have these things met in a universal 100% way they they've all been they've all been adjudicated and all that the the first half of the year it'll happen the same way that we thought it was going to happen if we do it by that Friday before and then all of a sudden in October we were we were kind of shocked to find out well no there you had to do it before this agenda setting meeting again in October we were told in September it was the one even for November so again what you're saying is pretty much as a chair you're just going to decide whenever these dates are and that's the only date that we have I don't

139like is you constantly tell me in other words here are my words if you no no no no no if you want to use my words use my words don't tell me I know your words I know your words that's that's the schedule yes so we every time we just have to look at that and then that's the only no anytime before that anytime okay that's okay okay is there any other discussion on Schoolboard Norms I find it interesting on the foe request that all of a sudden we're going to be hit with foryear request uh charges um is that sparked by a recent four year request that took place yeah okay um also the electronic device I mean all of us have been guilty of using our phones some of us have used laptops

140in Clos session you guys can do what you want with this I got a daughter in college I got a son that plays High School sports you all do what you want I'm going to continue conducting myself the way I always have we'll see we'll see if I can add something to that because I did talk about um to the Foya Council on this and they said that there's basically um that other boards have tried to do that in the past has but it usually comes down to a question of what Authority the board has if any to enforce such an agreement and um I even looked at other boards and nobody nobody that I've seen um tells their members they cannot bring their computer to do the work I I think it's it's something

141we not we need to find out legally if we're permitted to do it I think you're absolutely right we did we need legal clarification I agree I have the one from foyer Council if you want to ask somebody else go ahead but yeah there's anything else on the board Norms I'd like to pose a question on taping the closed session I'm not opening up another can of worms I'm just asking a question you think there would ever come a time when you would not want to tape a closed session because of the sensitivity of the the issue and um I note what you said Miss Corino about it would be there for us but us changes with every two years so I'm opposing this in in the terms of maybe there should be a um

142yes we'll tape it but maybe by majority vote knowing what's on the close maybe you wouldn't want to maybe you would take a vote and we will not I'm just asking you're allowed to record it yourself well I know I can but I wouldn't do it I don't know how to begin with well like I said that is something that um we are each of us allowed to do it whether we you know regardless um the other thing is when it comes to uh there certain information you know like the student mostly the stud student information um that that cannot be disclosed to the public anyways so I mean that could be something that you do not record anything that has has to do with the students or anything like that I have no problem

143with that I'm more concerned every time we have um um discussions especially like with attorneys um the attorneys will say certain things and then we don't have anything to either back it up or listen to it again or somebody heard it differently um we have no way of going back into that and and I can tell you right now we're already facing that issue um coming up that I can't talk about but we can talk about it in Clos session anything further on board Norms we'll be um taking that for Action at our next regular school board meeting 2.4 deals with the um policy INB teaching about controversial issues Dr Shepard want to give us some background please I'm sorry can I just say something real quick because um this is the amendment that uh

144Mr Street already was the one who introduced it and he wasn't here at the last meeting to introduce it and talk about it he's not here to introduce it and talk about it again so I think we should just go ahead and um um move this to the next meeting um for us to discuss because I I don't see how we can possibly be talking on about an issue that the person who's introducing it is not here to explain and defend I would have to agree what do you think I think as long as it's on action as well in the same No it should not be on action no because right now we just talked about this was this already put in the agenda setting meeting for this meeting what the Tom's agenda Tom's

145amendment I mean was that place was that discussed at your agenda setting meeting yes it was yes because I heard about it for the first time just a week and a half the few days before that well then if that's the case then it should be an informational agenda the next one because we have not had any discussion we haven't even talked about it at any of the public hearings so we should have people be able to listen to this so so I would like to have the proof that it was indeed um introduced before the agenda sitting meeting if you cane please provide that to me I really appreciate it um and then I'm going to move that then be for the informational agenda at the next meeting it cannot be for Action because

146we have not discussed it and we have not debated it in front of everybody hasn't even presented it yeah he hasn't even presented it and talked about it and defended it I'm uh I could speak to the issue but I um you make a point that that um I know Tom has been particularly interested in this I'd like to have him present um and I I would not have a problem with moving this to the informational agenda at our next meeting um I I do have would like to say one thing before we before we move in move away from this though is that um after the discussion that we had initially about about this uh when we passed it um 6 nothing um there was a concern that wondering how we would be able

147to revisit it uh talk about it uh and uh I called um our parliamentarian and he suggested that we either uh reconsider or discuss it at our at our at our next meeting which is why I which is why I put it on the agenda was because our our um our U parliamentarian suggested that was the way to go about it uh so um but now I'm thinking it probably would require an amendment to some other policy even if it were to go through so I I don't I don't personally have a problem with taking another look at it in an informational setting before we move to agenda do anybody disagree with that I mean I just have a point order is that um what Tom has added here as an amendment doesn't even go

148with the policy that he is trying to amend that's part of the discussion we'll have yes no it isn't because that this section that we have that we're talking about is about instruction and this amendment is not about instruction so given that it's it's not simply an amendment to a policy that we already have um this is basically a completely different policy um that would probably go against the yunan model um and that's what we would have to be amending at this point well see here here here's here's my here's it doesn't change what I just said but but let me this is this is what it says in policy when a proposed action of the school board initiated by either either by school board by School Board member or Administration affects existing School Board

149policies the existing policy and regulation if any shall be referenced so that the effect of the new action will be clear so I take your point that the ramifications of adding something else this other instruction will impact other other policies and we should be cognizant of that and that should be part of the discussion yes I mean the main part is going to have to be where does it go because it does not go in the couldn't agree more well I I wouldn't go that far but I would agree that we have to decide where it goes well here and I did have this for the next time that we do talk about it because I did have that prepared I didn't know that Tom was going to be moving would you rather wait until

150Tom's present to present I already gave him one of that yeah no but you guys can start reading it I mean it's the same thing well yeah maybe I should just that's up to you I had something that I quickly typed up based on a conversation Tom and I had okay so I would rather wait on mine until Tom's present okay so I think we do it one way or the other either we get back with time we did the information or we start to bleed all over it now whatever you want oh no it was about giving this information so if you guys can bring this up um for the next meeting I'll be talking about this at the next um meeting when we actually talk about this I mean it's up to you

151chairman Barlo I can either pass this out or I can hold off until the next meeting I would rather have a copy of this I I I would I would rather you hold off on it but as you please as long as we don't discuss it now you can hand it okay so do we need to make a motion to move that for information agenda in March um I will take it upon myself as the chair to recommend that to the superintendent at our agenda setting session but I think we need to take it out of the agenda don't we yeah so we need to make a motion right now to take it table we table it do we table it we don't need to do anything with it we just move on no no

152it's so if it is on the on the agenda for today no for March for for decision 13th we need to move it to the informational agenda as opposed to the decision agenda for our next meeting um and to make is there any objection if I as the chair make that recommendation superintendent that we move it from based on a consensus of the group tonight that we move it from action item next regular board meeting to an informational item but I think we still need to make a motion to take it out of this one I think we've discussed it um my opinion it's been discussed briefly so there'll be minutes that go under this particular section so I don't think it has to be removed because we had a little bit of discussion we

153didn't have yeah but that's my op that's my opinion you're right I mean it's a placeholder but at least uh sets us up so we can have a information session or action item or not action it item on in our uh March meeting Schoolboard member comments you going start you're not going to start I'm drawing a blank well I can talk a little bit um so I was going to have some comments on this policy but we'll talk about it at the next one um I did want to say on Friday I was able um to go to actually you know what I'm going to talk about this maybe at the hearing I guess doesn't matter um I'll just talk about it now um um doly W Robinson had a h breakfast uh lunch a

154breakfast uh for the school board members um and I was able to go there on Friday and I want to thank um um the principal Tara Mason and also Alicia Billy who's actually the counselor um they did a great program they had um uh five kids from their kindergarten I mean the fifth grade class that were part of the positive peer leadership team and they did a great job they did a great presentation um and then they did a little tour the school and told me all the great things that they they are doing and the things that they like and I really like to see this um I guess Miss Billy has actually only been there for two years and she kind of hid their ground running and and did this program and um

155I think they have about 24 kids right now and they're really emphasizing leadership skills and the the kids get to do the the presentation and answer questions and I was very impressed with his fifth graders so um kudos to her and uh I hope that they can grow the program even more thank you I was pleased to hear the U cautious acceptance of option C um I was a long time coming around to that the reasons the superintendent and I talk that our meeting a couple of months ago Sandy Hook is at 97% capacity now as you noted Mr Ricker tomorrow there will be new units going up there on hubs Hill they're starting the uh site preparation out there behind the 7-Eleven which you have noted and I know that not every unit will

156have uh you know children enrolling but you know there will be there will be some and I'm also uh concurring with with Mr chairman uh the hard work that went in for the budget preparation and now I have to digest all this and I didn't didn't get instructions on the digesting of that it's a team effort thank you team effort Mike go ahead thank you Miss careno for bringing up the school board appreciation breakfast to all the all the administration all the staff that's reached out to us and invited us to special events at the schools I did not get to return every single invite every single EMA email um but I do want to extend a thank you to our staff you guys are the ones that make us look good um you're the

157reason we're here you guys are doing the real work um and even though it was school board appreciation month I appreciate you the Schoolboard office staff the staff that's in the buildings that I'll call the boots on the ground y'all are with the kids day in and day out and you guys are the ones that deserve the Kudos um so thank thank you to all the people that reached out and invited us to breakfast or lunch or whatever um but the true Kudos go to you guys the staff not us as far as I'm concerned so thank each and every one of you yeah the uh School Board event the um opportunities to visit the schools is always great um I think we have triplet coming up this week rescheduled for the second or third

158time with bad weather so no more bad weather no no more bad weather um for now so um always great to do that yeah um stonewalls had to cancel theirs twice so it's hard to get to them but anyway um I'm all talked out I have nothing further does uh unless anybody else does I'm going to call for an adjournment can I have a motion to adjourn move to adjourn thank you Mr got all second Mr Rickard I knew you would all in favor please say I I any oppos none you're adjourn by five nothing vote Mr street is no longer here your share everybody you get